Introducing Dari's Archives

Here's the first of what we hope will be a regular series..."regularity" in posting being a relative concept here at Streets You Crossed of course.  A few weeks ago I received a lovely note from a lady named Dari S.:

"I just found your blog when looking for something else online. I love it....it's such a trip for me having grown up in the Village in the 50's and 60's.  I went to all the places you've mentioned as a kid and then some. My family's apartment was across the street from the Albert Hotel on University Place between 10th and 11th Streets where almost everyone practiced and lived briefly.  Was at all of the Murray the K shows as a kid (my first rock concert was an Alan Freed Big Best show in 1958 when I was in grade school with, amongst others, Buddy Holly)...You name them, I saw them...the Beatles 5 times....Jimmy James and the Blue Flames at the Cafe Wha? (my hang out), etc etc. ... I'd be glad to share any recollections I have and whatever pix (unfortunately I never took a picture of anything back then...stupid!)/info/etc. I've saved from those days."

How could I resist such a generous and tantalizing offer?  Dari's a busy lady but she promises to make with the scanner whenever she has a spare moment.  Here are a few items that she's sent me already, all with a Murray the K slant.

"You mentioned the Shangri-las on one page and we actually got them to perform at my friend's high school gym in 1966. Since I helped her organize it we were backstage with them before the show. And I had seen them at a Murray the K show that year as well. Attached are a couple of the program pages for 2 of his shows that I can find at the moment...I hope to be able to send you things that you'll be surprised and glad to have access to. Not that I like being this old but seriously, if I wasn't I would have missed the best days of rock and roll. We didn't know how great we had it back then, growing up in a city where all we had to do was get on a bus or subway to see everything and everyone that mattered."

"Attached is another Murray the K ad and very people know about or remember this. When the Cafe Wha? first started to go from a basket venue (folksingers like Dylan played here passing the "basket" for tips) to a club that catered more to rock and roll (where the kids and the money were)...Murray helped them get a younger crowd by hosting shows there. Clay Cole also had a connection to a local teen club in New Jersey called the Hullabaloo so that might be where Murray got the idea. I don't know this to be true but I have the feeling that his connection to them ended when he decided to open his own club the World. But up until that point he probably helped supply the musical groups and thus younger audience to the Wha?.  Murray the K's World failed but by him having his affiliation with the Wha? he helped it get some of the earliest connections to groups teenagers wanted to see.  They were the first (or at least one of them) clubs in NYC back then to have teen shows on Saturday afternoons.  It didn't cost anything to get in but you had to buy 2 (non-alcoholic) drinks which were each about $2.50-$3.50...a fortune to us as teenagers. I saw Jimi Hendrix play there (as Jimmy James and the Blue Flames) in 1966. Also saw the Castiles/Bruce Springsteen's first band, Kangaroo (John Oates' first group), the Blues Project, etc. etc...


"The best Murray the K show I saw was his 1967 show...it was March 25,1967 and the reason I remember this date so clearly is that the next day was the very first Be-In in Central Park which I also went to.  So did all of Cream, and they were so into the whole scene in Sheep Meadow that they forgot to get back to the theater in time for the next show. Murray was pissed!  Attached is the NY Times ad for this show and the program page for it as well. Some of the groups listed in the ad didn't play. I wrote about this on some music board awhile ago and if it isn't over-kill, here's that post.



"Saturday/March 25, 1967


"Not a date that will live in infamy, at least not one that you were expecting....right? And how many times in your life can you name the actual day of the week when something happened not just the date? If you can you know it was monumental. It’s written in my brain because it was the start of something earth shattering for me and my generation. Hell, the world had already spun on it’s axis on february 7, 1964 when the Beatles landed.  This was gonna take it one step further.  If I’d have thought about it that day maybe I’d have realized that the world was gonna change again.  But, I swear that you never know these things when you’re smack dab in the middle of them.  You don’t have a god-damned clue.


"It was 3 months before Monterey Pop and it was in a freaking movie theater for god’s sake. Tradition had it that every year for Xmas and Easter, my friends and I would wait on line to get into the first Murray the K  rock and roll shows that were usually held at the Brooklyn Fox theater. Even with the Beatles having played at Shea Stadium a few years before, most rock and roll was still played in movie theaters or small concert halls.  At Murray’s shows there was always a large roster of well known and unknown acts who each got to do a few songs.  This was the Easter show and for the first time it was in NYC at the RKO 58th Street.  The headliner was Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels...couldn’t wait to see him.  Didn’t really pay attention to who else was on the program because it was all about Murray the K and being around people your age.  Back then without the internet, we had no place to hook up with other kids. So we pay our approximately $2.50-$3.50 to get in and sit in the third row of the center section. Now here’s where it gets hard.  How do you explain your reaction to something when you’ve never heard anything like it before in your life?  I try to do that constantly with Beatles stuff (that’s another story) and it never really works.  After a few acts, these 3 guys walk on and all we know about them is that it’s their first time in America.  Never heard of ‘em. There’s no single on the radio...AM radio that is.  It’s what’s ruling the airwaves at the time. Back then it was all about the singles and what was number one on the charts.  It’s TRL without the visual.  They plug in.  Then this sound comes out.  I mean SOUND...the kind that is deep and loud and it rips your head off.  We’re all thinking how the hell does this SOUND come out from just these 3 guys?  It is not humanly possible.  I look around for the 20 other back up musicians figuring that they are hiding somewhere off stage somewhere to help make this SOUND.  Nope.  It’s just them.  And that bass line is driving me right up the wall.  Well you can say all you want to about Led Zep.  I love them to death.  But it was at that first show of this run of Easter shows in 1967 that heavy metal was introduced in the USA.  Do I have to say their name?  Do I have to speak the words?  Cream. Holy fuck. Polite applause when they leave the stage with Murray’s encouragement after their allotted 2-3 songs. I didn’t even catch the name of the songs.  I can’t even guarantee you that it was “Sunshine of your Love.”  That song wouldn’t even be released 'til the following year but I think they played it that day.  Hell most of us kids had come to hear Wilson Pickett sing "Mustang Sally."  Now don’t get me wrong.  I love that song and probably was begging to hear it too.  But this was a whole different dimension right there on that stage.  At that moment the swinging 60’s ended for me and the psychedelic 60’s were born. And it had nothing to do with drugs or being high.  You didn’t have to be. But wait...it gets better...


"Next out...four guys.  At least I’d heard of them.  They’d had some airplay on AM radio.  So they plug in and another wave of LOUD SOUND blows our earlobes off.  I was starting to get used to this but still wasn’t sure how I felt about it.  Then another U.S. premiere on that stage at that moment in time. This guy takes his guitar and starts breaking it up by smashing it into the huge (for that time) amp. What the hell is wrong with this guy???  My brother had saved up for years to buy his old 1958 Guild hollow body electric guitar and this guy has the balls to smash his on purpose...we are stupified.  In the era of bands bowing and smiling these guys do neither.  The Who just walk off the stage when they’re done.  There are lots of boos to be heard in the audience.  I might have been one of those people.  The waste of that instrument went against everything our “depression era” parents had taught us.  As a jazz musician who treasured his instrument, my dad would have had a coronary.  Still on some other level, we secretly smiled.  This was the continuation of the rebellion that had started with Elvis and the Beatles.  Inwardly I think I was loving it.  Yeah...I remember Mitch Ryder coming out and us all crazy over his set and his great showmanship.  I still love his music to this day.  But I knew something had changed that day and there was no going back.  Within 3 months the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s” and Mitch Ryder and early rock would have a hard time getting airplay on newly formed FM stations.  The very next day the first ever NY Be-In was held on Easter Sunday in Central Park.  When you came over the rise in Sheep Meadow, all you saw was kids and they were dressed exactly like me and wanted to listen to the same music I did. That day 1,000’s of kids found out for the first time that we were a life force to be reckoned with.  So we took it and ran.  The rest as they say...well, hell...you know what they say.  But I have to guarantee you one thing as you look at this program from that Murray the K show on March 25, 1967... it was the last time that the Hardly Worthit players ever got top billing over the Who and Cream. Guess they really were hardly worth it."

"Oh and one more thing...I saw a comment on one of the links you sent me asking about the Bloodless Revolutionaries, one of the acts at one of the Murray the K shows. This was one of the Murray the K groups that Murray tried to promote that got nowhere. It consisted of 2 girls and a guy, and I think Murray was hitting on Pattie Michaels, the stunning lead singer in the group.  That was probably the reason he put them on the show to begin with.  I don't think they ever recorded anything and they probably had no talent...but a pretty face went a long way with him so I assume that's why they got a spot on his show to begin with. Attached is a picture from the program of 2 of the 3 Bloodless Revolutionaries.  If I had been the 3rd girl I would have been pissed that I was the only one left out of the program. Guess she wasn't as cute as Pattie."

Thanks Dari!  Looking forward to your future contributions!
 
 

Belated R.I.P. to Bobby Robinson...see the Hound, Jeremiah's VNY, and Stupefaction for good coverage.  Also check out Stupefaction's post on Brooklyn's recently closed Zig Zag Records.

K paso?

Just got another fantastic anecdote about Murray the K's "Music in the Fifth Dimension" show, from a swell reader named Nelson!

Via Flickr.

From Jane & Michael Stern's Sixties People.

During those shows, as the bands were setting up, they alternated between Jackie the K’ s dancing troupe and audience participation dance contests. Jackie was, of course, Murray’s gorgeous trophy wife. Murray would select a group of volunteers from the audience and have them dance onstage to a record, and the winner was determined by the volume of the applause they received. As a prize, the winner would get to go backstage and meet the star of their choice.

During one of those sessions there was a guy selected named “Ambrose,” who was sort of putting on his own little show. Amongst other things, he had a pair of drumsticks which he played on the microphone stand. Anyhow, though he was not the best dancer, the audience selected him overwhelmingly just to see what he’d do next. When Murray asked who he would like to meet backstage, he replied in a lecherous voice, “Your Wife, heh, heh!” With this the entire theatre broke out in laughter. It is the only time that I have seen Murray the K at a loss for words.

Later on at the next intermission, Murray attempted a weak comeback by saying that Ambrose told him afterward that he really wanted to meet Keith Moon, and then added, “So we don’t know about Ambrose,” implying that he may be less than heterosexual, which did not go over well with the audience.

A Swingin' Smoke-Bomb Soiree

Yes, here's yet another update to an old post! I was recently contacted by one LHM, who got a kick out of my Murray the K show essay, and generously offered some memories of his own along with a couple of choice pics from the "Music in the Fifth Dimension" Easter '67 show.

I count myself VERY LUCKY to say that I witnesed the American debut of THE WHO at the Murray the K Easter Show at the RKO 58th Street Theatre. On Monday, March 27, 1967 I was 14 years old and in the 9th grade. My friend Dan S. and I were on line by 6:30 AM to get the best seats, but we wound up in the 5th or 6th row. Still, it was a great place to be to see history in the making.

Quite frankly, most of the acts I saw that day are a blur to me now, except for the short but riveting performance(s) by the Who. There was something so raw, cool and aggressive about them and their sound that they stood out miles ahead of the other performers. The Who had "IT" and for a 14 year old, the Who was the epitome of Rock and Roll. Pete's windmills and guitar smashed-ups were astounding and I remember to this day the pungent smell of smoke when they finished their sets that day -- yes, I could smell the smoke bombs from the 5th row!

Attached is a photo I took of the Who at this show, I regret that I only took one picture. The other attachment is a full page ad that appearead in the New York Daily News on Sunday, March 26. 1967.

The live shot reminds me of a set of '60s Who pics I saw a while back, taken at the Indiana Beach club in Monticello, Indiana. Which in turn remind me of all the shots I try to take at shows but inevitably wind up with better views of backs-of-heads than band action...except instead of some garage punk unknowns, it's the bleedin' 'Oo up there in between all the heads! (Make sure to check out the incredible and back-of-head-free '66 Yardbirds pics on the next page of the same site.)

As it happens, late last year while looking for more info on Murray I found this wonderful blog post on the '67 Easter show. It's part of a growing and graphically-rich site called Talkin' About My Generation, which features the first-person rock & roll reminiscences of one David Gross. Required reading!

And since we're on the subject of Brit Invaders, I should share a tidbit I was ignorant of until a few days ago. Seems that as part of the promotion for their flick Catch Us If You Can (a.k.a. Havin' a Wild Weekend), the Dave Clark 5 made appearances at the Richmond Hill RKO Keith's, and possibly the Flushing RKO Keith's as well!!! I can't quite tell from the comments I've seen whether these were actual concerts or just personal appearances, but I'm pleased as punch the DC5 touched base in my home borough either way.

Speaking of Brits in Queens, I might as well throw this query out there and see if anyone bites as I've been darn curious for a while. According to the Hollies' '60s tour schedule, they played a location in Flushing on December 8, 1967. I'm thinking it was Queens College as they toured through quite a few U.S. colleges around that time, but does anyone know for sure?

Other updates: Steve Paul's the Scene has its very own Facebook page, and it's been active for about a year now--how come I only found out about it today? Also, it looks as though that "Tent of Tomorrow" the New York Pavilion may see some tomorrows after all.

Fame, set and match

Our next site got a prominent mention in No Direction Home on PBS earlier this week. How timely--since I've been in Queens mode over the last couple of posts, I was already planning on covering it...

FOREST HILLS TENNIS STADIUM--1 Tennis Place (off Burns Street, north of 71st Avenue), Forest Hills, Queens. Founded in 1892, the West Side Tennis Club operated at several inadequate Manhattan locations over a twenty-year period before planting permanent roots in then-pastoral Forest Hills. The well-appointed new club, opened in 1913, became so highly regarded that the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association decided to hold its National Championship there two years later. These games--later renamed the U.S. Open--continued to be held annually at West Side until 1978 (whereupon they were moved to Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing). To accomodate spectators, a 14,000-seat stadium (some reports say 15,000) was built on the grounds in 1923. For highlights of the site's role in tennis history, check out these links.

Ron Delsener is given credit for establishing the stadium as a music venue. According to an article in the Wharton Journal, he came up with the idea one summer while employed there (presumably in a non-musical capacity) in the early '60s: "You didn't have to pay for heat or air-conditioning. Kids were out of school. And with the exception of the Hollywood Bowl and maybe one or two other places, no one else was doing this [outdoor pop-music concerts]." The earliest concert dates I've found are the Kingston Trio on August 5, 1960, Judy Garland on July 1, 1961, and Joan Baez on August 17, 1963 (at which Bob Dylan joined her for a couple of numbers). There must have been other early '60s shows, but it seems like the ball really got rolling over the summer of '64.

Put aside whatever personal vendetta you may have against Barbra Streisand for a sec (I dig her, OK?) and check out this page documenting her FHTS appearances on July 12, 1964 and August 8, 1965. You'll see a couple of ads for the Forest Hills Music Festival, as the summer concert series was then dubbed. In addition to Barbra, the '64 ad lists the following shows (most dates are difficult to read): Trini Lopez, Count Basie and Woody Allen (stand-up, not clarinet); Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba; Joan Baez (August 8; Dylan again sang with her for part of the set); Johnny Mathis; and, in the ultimate '64 booking coup, the Beatles on August 28-29. The '65 ad is much harder to decipher, but I can make out the likenesses of Peter, Paul & Mary, Judy Garland, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra and Woody again, among others. One Forest Hills resident on cinematreasures.org remembers the era fondly: "Besides the US Open playing 3 blocks from my house, the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium once played incredible concerts. The summer of '64 must have had the most star studded lineup ever. Sinatra played with Count Basie. There was Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee and Chet Baker to name a few. And lets not forget the Beatles who caused so much mania they landed in a helicopter on the courts of the West Side Tennis club. My folks took home movies of the mobs packing Burns Street all the way to Continental Avenue. The other great thing was you could hear the shows from the Street if you could not get tickets."

The Beatles' dates were their first New York appearances since Ed Sullivan and Carnegie Hall in February '64. Leslie West offers some memories of the show, and of growing up in Forest Hills, here. During the afterparty at the Hotel Delmonico on that first night, Al Aronowitz introduced the lads to Bob Dylan--who in turn introduced them to the demon weed, according to legend (though I've always found it hard to believe they hadn't already encountered pot in tough Liverpool or the wild Reeperbahn).

[UPDATE 8/25/2010: Read Binky Philips' fab memories of this show here.]

Speaking of Dylan, his August 28, 1965 FHTS date is almost as notorious as the Newport "goes electric" appearance a month previous--and probably received an even more hostile crowd reaction. Al Kooper gives a great account in his Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards (New York: Billboard, 1998). It's too lengthy for me to quote here, but he summed it up well in No Direction Home--to wit, the crowd basically booed, heckled, and cussed all through the electric portion of the show, stopped to sing along with "Like a Rolling Stone" (#1 on the charts that very week), then continued to boo afterwards. Eyewitness reports and photos are available at these links. I'm assuming this pic was taken at the soundcheck.





As if seeking to complete some kind of Ultimate Sixties Band trifecta, the Rolling Stones played FHTS on July 2, 1966. Enjoy these fan reminiscences--one notes that Martha and the Vandellas and the Standells opened.  [UPDATE 4/6/2012: Apparently that fan's memories were a bit faulty, and it was actually the Ronettes who were among the openers.]

[UPDATE 5/25/2010: The Life archives have about three pages of fab fotos from the show!]
[UPDATE 4/2/2012:  Why yes, I was indeed thrilled to have this show play a major part in Mad Men episode 503, "Tea Leaves"!!! The Trade Winds connection was a completely new factoid to me...and the reference to a sack of 20 from the White Castle on Queens Boulevard was a killer touch.  A color poster for the '66 summer show lineup appears here, and here's a setlist.]
[UPDATE 4/6/2012: Mad Men fansite Basket of Kisses did a post about the '66 Stones tour, and Gothamist also did a post on the FHTS Stones show.  I just started reading Johnny Ramone's memoirs, and his ticket to this show is reproduced in the book.]





This terrific ad lists the rest of that summer's line-up:

• Sammy Davis Jr. and the Count Basie Orchestra, with Jay and the Americans opening, July 8 and 9
• Andy Williams and Henry Mancini, July 30


• The Mamas and the Papas and local boys Simon and Garfunkel, August 6


• Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, August 13


• Three of Motown's finest--the Supremes, the Temptations, and Steve Wonder--on August 20


• Ray Charles, August 27.

[UPDATE 5/21/2009: I was just perusing some '66 issues of Billboard that Google has recently added to their Book Search archive. There's a short article in the 8/20/66 ish about the Mamas and Papas/Simon and Garfunkel show which reports that the M and Ps' set was cut short when a gang of 20 or so unruly teens attempted to rush the stage. The group split the scene after their last song and wouldn't come back for an encore despite Good Guy Dandy Dan Daniels' pleas for more.]

The Lovin' Spoonful played with Judy Collins on June 24, 1967--possibly the last show with the original lineup.

The infamous Monkees tour with the Jimi Hendrix Experience as openers rolled in from July 14-16, 1967. Contrary to a crafty Lillian Roxon press release, Hendrix was not kicked off the tour due to pressure from the DAR--rather, he split simply out of frustration with the teeny-boppers' constant Monkee-chants during his sets. The Forest Hills crowd may have been particularly annoying, for legend has it he gave them the finger before storming offstage.

I wish all complete line-ups of the Forest Hills Music Festival were as easy to find as that of 1968--though admittedly that season wasn't quite as rockin' as previous ones. According to pophistorynow.com, that summer's roster featured:

• Nancy Wilson and the Fifth Dimension, June 22


• Judy Collins and Arlo Gutrie, June 29


• Peter, Paul and Mary, July 13


• Trini Lopez and Lainie Kazan, July 20


• The Four Seasons and Bobbie Gentry, July 27


• The Supremes and Stevie Wonder, August 3


• The Bee Gees, Spanky and Our Gang, and the First Edition, August 10


• Simon and Garfunkel, August 17 (other S and G dates include 8/12/67 and 7/18/70)
• And the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, and King Curtis on August 24

Janis Joplin played the FHTS twice--July 19, 1969 with the Kozmic Blues Band, and August 2, 1970 with the Full Tilt Boogie Band.

The Who's two-night stand on July 29 and 31, 1971 included a few aberrations. For one, Keith Moon's headphones--which he used to hear the pre-taped synth tracks on "Baba O'Reilly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again"--caught fire and had to be doused by a water bucket from a quick-thinking roadie. At another point Keith accidentally broke the head off John Entwistle's bass (it had been leaning against an amp when he tripped over it), which inspired a rare fit of bass-smashing from John. Furthermore, a security guard was stabbed to death by an ex-con who had been denied entry to the second show.



Few other '70s shows were quite as, ahem, eventful as those. So far I've found references only for the likes of Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, Linda Ronstadt, and Joni Mitchell. The Neil article states that his show was the first concert at the stadium in five years; perhaps the stabbing incident had led to the hiatus, and to the subsequent booking of more M.O.R.-type acts. Things were marginally better in the '80s--but for every Elvis Costello (8/27/82 and 8/18/84) or Talking Heads (8/21/82), you also had acts like Genesis and ASIA. Full geek disclosure--in my sole Forest Hills concert experience, I got physical with Olivia Newton-John on August 13, 1982, accompanied by my older sister. I was 11--no accounting for taste at that age.

The stadium has seen only very sporadic concert use since then--including K-ROCK's first Dysfunctional Family Picnic on July 1, 1997 (with Blur, Bush, Luscious Jackson, the Foo Fighters, Soul Coughing, and Echo & the Bunnymen), the Furthur Festival on July 3 (with various Grateful Dead offshoots, Jorma Kaukonen, Arlo Guthrie, the Black Crowes, and Moe) and the first two Reggae Carifest shows in '98 and '99. Since the place is plopped down right in the midst of a residential area, I would imagine that many locals frown upon potentially loud and rowdy events like these. This 2003 article reported that the stadium was in dire need of repair, but tennis tournaments are still regularly held on the premises.


UPDATE 5/25/2010: I found a few more lineup posters, for 1964 (from Beatlesbible.com), 1967 (Wolfgang's Vault), and 1970 (from a Simon and Garfunkel fanblog). I can't believe I failed to find any Doors show references (8/12/67, with Simon and Garfunkel) back when I first researched this entry! And lookee here at some fantastic Life photos from the Stones show!!!]







Forest Hills Tennis Stadium Youtube videos.


Article from Feb. 2011: "Will Forest Hills Stadium Rock Again in the 21st Century?"


UPDATE 3/14/2013:  According to an article in the Forest Hills-Rego Park Times, concerts may return to the stadium this summer.

UPDATE 6/24/2013:  Big news in the 6/23/2013 New York Times, in an article written by Corey Kilgannon.  "After decades of languishing in obscurity and disrepair, one of the most famous sports and concert sites in New York will again reverberate with the sound of live music. The Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, which opened in 1923 and has played host to Jimmy Connors and John Lennon, sits next to an expanse of grass and clay tennis courts at the West Side Tennis Club, the stadium’s owner. Club officials and a promoter have an agreement to hold 19 concerts over the next three years. The stadium is still in shoddy condition, and after an accelerated renovation to make it ready, one concert is planned there this summer — an Aug. 28 show by Mumford and Sons  — followed by six in each of the next three summers. This summer’s concert will serve as something of a pilot, to convince residents of Forest Hills Gardens, the exclusive neighborhood of elegant Tudor homes around the stadium, that the concerts will not be a nuisance, said the club’s president, Roland Meier. Concerts have not been welcomed in the neighborhood in the past. Mr. Meier said he hoped the concerts — which will begin as the club celebrates its 100th anniversary in Queens, and the stadium turns 90 — would finance the refurbishing of the stadium and lead to the return of tennis and other top events."

Flushing the Bowl

My husband and I usually stay at a certain Manhattan hotel when visiting NYC, but it's all booked up this week, so we have a reservation at a new Ramada in Corona, my real hometown--overlooking scenic Grand Central Parkway and Shea Stadium. I've got to spend lots of time with what's left of my family (my mother passed away recently), so it's more convenient for my pops anyway. The hotel's proximity to Flushing Meadows Park (more pics/info here, here and here) is prompting me to ponder past rock and roll action in the area. I'll start with a long-lost hotbed of hippiedom:




(Via The Bowery Boys.)
SINGER BOWL--At the northern edge of Flushing Meadows, near the Shea Stadium/Willets Point stop on the 7 train. The Singer Bowl was an open-air stadium built for the '64 World's Fair and apparently sponsored by the Singer sewing machine company. Seems it was used primarily for sporting events until the late '60s, when it became a major venue for big summer rock shows. Some notables who played there:



The Doors, with the Who and the Kangaroo as openers, performed on August 2, 1968--an event which caused a riot, though of course volatility was not uncommon at Doors gigs (or Who shows for that matter!). There's a ticket stub for sale here, and the Doors' setlist for the night can be read here.

[UPDATE 5/14/2010: Quite a bit of footage from the Doors show wound up in When You're Strange, as shown on PBS the other night. Not so much of the band performing, but you do get to see Morrison mingling with some people in the crowd before the show (including a guy selling Who programs), and of him backstage comforting a girl who got hit with a chair during the melee. I tried to see if there was more on youtube, but no dice...however, I did find audio of "Light My Fire," and of the Who's whole set.]

Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were the big draws on August 23, 1968. This show is often called the New York Rock Festival, but I've seen the Doors/Who show referred to as such also--perhaps this was an overall title for concerts at the Singer that summer. I'm not absolutely sure who else was on the bill, but it may have included the Soft Machine and the Chambers Brothers, if this guy's memories are correct. Audio and video of Hendrix's set has been well-circulated among Jimi-philes.

[Oddly, this August 23 date conflicts with a reference I found for a bill featuring Country Joe and the Fish, the Byrds, and the 1910 Fruitgum Company.]

[UPDATE 5/25/2012: I just found some vintage reviews and photos for this show at a French Hendrix fan forum.  And a lady who attended the show recently posted a couple of Janis snapshots at the "You Know Your [sic.] From Flushing" FB group.]

Two of the NYC-area's finest, The (Young) Rascals and the Vagrants, shared a bill there on August 30, 1968--here's a ticket stub.

The Singer Bowl Music Festival happened on July 13, 1969, and appears to have been the heaviest show in the stadium's history. I haven't seen a copy of the full bill, but based on various websites I've perused, it included the Edwin Hawkins Singers, Raven, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Vanilla Fudge, the Jeff Beck Group, and Led Zeppelin--plus a jam session (no late-'60s fest was complete without one) comprising various members of those last three bands.

Later that summer, Poco, the Chambers Brothers and Albert King shared a bill on August 23. On August 29-30, Zeppelin played the Bowl again, with support from Buddy Guy and Foreplay, which featured Larry Coryell, Cream's Jack Bruce, and Mitch Mitchell from the Hendrix Experience. The Jimmy Castor Bunch played the Bowl in the early '70s, but I can't confirm the date.

On July 4, 1973, the Bowl was rededicated as the Louis Armstrong Stadium, a fitting tribute to Corona's most famous longtime resident. A concert in honor of what would have been Satchmo's 73rd birthday was held there that summer (presumably on August 4, though I haven't confirmed the date), featuring Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Eubie Blake, Gene Krupa and other jazzbos. But the stadium's days as a music venue were numbered. In 1978, Armstrong Stadium was adapted for use as a tennis facility called the USTA National Tennis Center, and it became the new home of the U.S. Open (formerly held at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills--a place with its own musical legacy, to be discussed in a future entry). Armstrong Stadium still stands today, albeit in a much-renovated form; it serves as a supplemental facility to the larger Arthur Ashe Stadium, which was built beside it in 1997. Thousands still flock to the area every summer--but instead of rock and roll, they're more likely to hear grunting tennis players, balls whacked against racquets, and the otherworldy hum of the Fuji blimp circling overhead.

I'll cover more of Flushing Meadows' musical happenings next time.

[UPDATE 5/23/2010: Why I failed to learn about or mention the important role that Gary Kurfirst played in all of this until just now is a mystery for the ages.]


[UPDATE 6/17/2020: Here's an ad for the 1969 season from the 6/5/69 issue of the Village Voice. It's incomplete, so I'll keep looking for revised versions of the ad in the archives.]

[UPDATE 3/15/2012:  Revised and updated post on Singer Bowl and NY Pavilion ads here.]